Your Money. Your Influence. How to change the world without becoming an activist

byJulie Masters

1 billion, that’s the number of deaths due to tobacco that will have happened this century.

8 billion, that’s the amount of money that used to be invested in the tobacco that now, isn’t

Bronwyn King is the person responsible for that last number, and as an oncologist, she’s spent her career trying to stop the effects of the first number.

But it was only when she sat down with her financial planner to look over her family’s money, did she realise that she and millions of other Australians were unknowingly funding the very thing that was killing them through the investment of their super fund.

But instead of getting angry, really angry, stomping her feet and yelling at the front door of the tobacco industry, (which is something I feel I might do) and instead of throwing her hands up and putting this injustice in the ‘stuff it ? way too hard’ bucket she did something way smarter.

She got forensic about her own ability to influence. She went to the power brokers of the tobacco industry ? the people that invest in them, and compelled them to change.

And if that isn’t the ultimate example of owning your own influence, I don’t know what is.

In the next 30 minutes you’ll hear us talk about what happens when a cause finds you. We look at some of the tools she used to get a seat at the table with some seriously powerful people. We talk about using compelling language, finding the right buttons to push, how to make simple requests and how sometimes you need to go against the ‘activist norms’ to make change happen.